


Denial

by Crazy4Chocolate



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1452631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazy4Chocolate/pseuds/Crazy4Chocolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're an idiot. You shouldn't be feeling this way. But—no, you can't be attracted to her. You can't." The feelings and dreams that come to Anna aren't exactly wanted. How can something that feels so wrong when she's awake feel so right when she dreams? And will her waking mind come to accept that her feelings might be more than a girl-crush? Modern!College!AU, Unrelated!Elsanna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denial

Anna woke to the silence of the early morning. She didn't even have to fully open her eyes to know it was dark outside and she shouldn't be awake for another few hours. She didn't have a test to study for, no 10-page paper that she literally procrastinated on until the last day before it was due... why the  _heck_  was she up?

_Come_  on  _brain, why did you wake me up so early?_  she thought blearily to herself, scolding her body's automatic clock as if it were a misbehaving child.  _It's probably not even 5..._ She didn't want to check, though. She knew that the moment she opened her eyes enough to let light properly pour in, she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep very easily. Then she'd certainly be even more tired than she already felt.

She knew what had woken her up, though. The dreams. She had been having them again.

The dreams had felt so great in their duration, but upon waking and the reality of the dream really hit her, she ended up wanting to kick herself or knock some sense into her emotions. They were toying with her like a cat plays with a mouse... they had been for the past few nights. Her dreams were nothing but her and the other girl, just the two of them together...

Anna shivered, pulling the covers up over herself, trying to push the somewhat sensual dream out of her mind. She wasn't entirely sure if she was shivering from cold or a pleasured wanting. She'd much rather have the former be the reality than admitting the latter, even though a part of her said that the latter really was the true source of the reaction.

And she hated her mind for it.

With a resigned sigh, she buried herself under the covers and allowed her blue-green eyes to close, drifting off into slumber once again. She hoped that the dreams wouldn't come back, that for once this week she could have a dream that was normal by her standards.

Her wish was not granted.

_It was much the same as the others, this dream. The whispers of her name, the caring caresses, the other girl gently kissing her neck as Anna rest her head on the other's chest. It felt so comfortable, so relaxing..._

_In her waking hours, she kept telling herself it was wrong. It was repulsive to feel this way toward another girl. And yet in the dreams all those concerns seemed to melt away, as if she forgot what her conscious self said and thought on a regular basis. She was just content being there, snuggling closer to the platinum-blonde-haired young woman in question. Even thinking the girl's name gave Anna pleasurable shivers down her spine._

_Elsa._

_"Are you cold?"_

_Anna shifted on her side slightly, not wanting to leave her comfortable position as Elsa stroked her hair. "Mmm hmm..."_

_Elsa's grip gently tightened around her, letting the younger girl relax in her warm embrace—_

"Oy, Anna! You going to sleep through your first class or what?"

The voice of her Scottish friend Merida permeating the dream caused Anna to wake with a start, her flailing hand nearly smacking her roommate in the face. She prayed frantically that she hadn't been mumbling in her sleep (as she did on occasion according to Merida). Mumbling meant hearing the pleasured murmurs. The whispers of her name in Elsa's alluring voice. The mumbles of Elsa's name as she comfortably reveled in the warmth of the other...

The conflicted girl was so lost in her forbidden thoughts that she almost didn't see Merida waving her hand in front of her face and saying something frantically to her. She shook her head into focus. "Wait, what?"

"Doesn't your first class start at 8:30?"

_8:30, yes, Geometry._  Anna blinked her eyes and glanced over at the time brightly illuminated on her phone, taunting her.

"8:25?! SHOOT! I have only 5 minutes!" Any sleepiness that Anna might have felt was immediately abandoned for frantically looking for proper clothes to change into, prompting Merida to keep her distance lest she risk being hit with something. "Why didn't you wake me up?!"

"Why didn't  _you_  set your alarm?" Merida joked with a teasing smirk. "You usually do."

"I-I know," Anna mumbled, flabbergasted as she picked out a forest-green long-sleeved shirt and black pants. "I guess I just got sidetracked and forgot!" She hurried into the bathroom and slammed the door, trying to ignore Merida's amused chuckles.

**-0-0-0-**

Anna didn't know how she made it through Geometry that morning.

The recipient of her (unwanted) affection was Elsa Andersen, a senior with a major in Theater and a minor in Mathematics. Thanks to them not having assigned seats as had been prevalent in high school, the students could sit wherever they wanted.

Elsa happened to come in late that day (which got her a bit of a scolding from Professor Weselton), so she took the only seat available to her at the time. Which happened to be the one right next to Anna.

Anna kept having say a mantra to herself to not look at Elsa and focus her attention on the board, which became increasingly hard to do as time went on.

But now there was nothing to worry about. What mattered now was that it was 11:00am and Anna Summers needed something to eat before she keeled over.

After obtaining a brunch of scrambled eggs and sausage, with milk and a cup of delicious chocolate pudding on the side, the teen scoured the mess hall to look for a place to sit, only to freeze up cold. At one of the long tables closer to the mess hall's windows, there was a single person sitting on the far end. The very one who had been at the forefront of Anna's mind for the past few nights, never letting up.

It was Elsa.

Anna swallowed, hurriedly sitting down a few seats away down the table before Elsa could see her and strike up what would like be a very awkward conversation on Anna's part. Luckily, Elsa took no notice of the younger girl staring at her and instead continued eating her own scrambled eggs, neatly rather than the messier way Anna did, which her friend Kristoff Bjorgman called "eating like a hungry wolf".

Quickly turning away from Elsa and praying that she hadn't noticed, Anna was left alone with her food and her thoughts. And right now, as she quickly ate her food to try to distract herself from the fact that Elsa was sitting right there, her thoughts weren't exactly in agreement.  _You're an_ idiot _. You shouldn't be feeling this way. But—no, you_ can't _be attracted to her. You **can't**._

It was times like this that Anna wished that the voices in her head would just shut up. She sat morosely at the cafeteria table, waving her hand around her head as if trying to knock away a bothersome fly.  _You think I don't know that?_ She wasn't sure which side of her brain she was arguing with, though: the side that felt an affection for the older girl, or the side of her that was disgusted at the mere possibility of attraction.

Or maybe it was a confusing mix of both.

_What would I even_ say _to her, anyway?_  Anna thought in a slight mental tone of distress, averting her eyes from Elsa.  _'Hey, I've had dreams about you for the past several nights and I think you're really pretty and funny and awesome but I don't like you like that, I swear'?_

Anna felt a blush begin to creep up on her cheeks at the mere thought of the other girl, trying to shake her focus on the object of her affection and instead focus on eating her cup of chocolate pudding. But the spoon merely hovered in the space between her mouth and the pudding cup as Anna's thoughts began to drift toward the dreams that had stayed with her the past couple nights. The dreams that she loved during them and was disgusted by afterward.

_Elsa wrapping her slender arms around Anna's body, holding her close and saying she'd keep her warm._

_The gentle and delicate touch of Elsa's fingers as she stroked Anna's hair and face with the care one would have toward a fragile glass figure._

_The comforting yet dizzying sensation of Elsa's lips on hers that even now caused Anna to shudder in a hazy bliss of unwanted longing..._

"Hello, Earth to Anna? Come in, Anna, do you read?"

The perplexed voice of her friend shook Anna out of her dreamy stupor, causing the spoon she had been holding to clatter on the table. By the time Anna was physically and mentally brought back into the reality of where she was, the "5-second rule" was long-since up and the spoonful of pudding was rendered uneatable. She blinked her eyes into focus to see her friend Kristoff staring at her, steak and a cup of fruit present on his tray. "Oh, h-hey, Kristoff..."

The young man sitting opposite her chuckled, brushing a few overhanging bangs of blond hair out of his face. "Good, I was beginning to think you were dozing off or something!" He tilted his head, curious as Anna began to rub at her eyelids to shake herself awake. "I've never seen you so tired that you've barely even touched your pudding, usually you've eaten about three cups before I can even blink!" His mouth turned up slightly at the thought, knowing full well about Anna's near-addiction to chocolate. If she wasn't focused on eating that when it was right in front of her, something must be up. "Rough night?"

"You... you could say that," Anna managed while fighting through a yawn, glancing down at her dirty spoon with disappointment etched on her face. Looking back and forth from Elsa to the pudding in such a quick glance it was almost instantaneous, Anna scrunched up her face and placed her fist on the wooden table in frustration. "Ugh, darn it!"

"Don't worry, I'll get you another one," Kristoff offered kindly, leaving his tray behind to retrieve another utensil for his tired companion. "I was going to get some more food for myself, anyway.

Knowing that Kristoff was pretty perceptive of her feelings, Anna took the opportunity to mull over the forbidden territory that her mind kept drifting to that was her true cause for frustration (though the spilled chocolate wasn't making it any better). As much as she tried to stop her "stupid brain", Anna couldn't help her thoughts turning once again toward the real reason for her irritation.  _Darn it,_ darn it _! Why can't I stop thinking about her?! I shouldn't, I_ know _I shouldn't, but_ ugh _, she's just so... nice, talented, pretty?... No, no, pretty is_ waaayyy _too simple a term for her._

Anna wanted to kick herself for the thoughts swarming through her mind, whirling like a stormy whirlpool. The mental image of Elsa next to her, kissing her, speaking with that soft voice of hers... a dreamy stare began to cross Anna's face as she started to zone out, unwillingly going into her fantasies...

It took her a moment to realize that Elsa had turned to notice the other girl staring, their eyes meeting.

_Oh no._

Hoping desperately to save face, Anna straightened her posture and gave a shy little wave, praying that her face wouldn't betray her by blushing. "G-Good morning, E-Elsa!"

Elsa turned her mouth up a little in return, raising her hand in a half-wave of acknowledgement. "Hi, Anna." Her amused expression turned to a slight frown as she leaned over to look closely at Anna, as if inspecting something.

The redhead mentally screamed at her face not to betray her.  _Oh crap, she's staring, she's staring, don't blush, don't blush, don't—_

"You look tired."

_Whew_. Anna nodded, trying not to let the relief show on her face. "Y-Yeah." She rubbed her eyes again, trying to wake herself up further and have the darkness momentarily distract her from the fact that Elsa was staring at her. "I didn't get much sleep last night."

At least she didn't have to lie about that.

"I've had a few  _crazy_  dreams lately," she added absent-mindedly, her mind briefly returning to said dreams as she momentarily forgot just who it was she was admitting it to.

"What kind of crazy dreams?"

Anna's eyes widened in horror as she resisted the urge to facepalm when she realized what she had just said. She was blushing bright red and she knew it, her face betraying her thoughts, her eyes looking at Elsa like a deer in headlights.  _Say something, you idiot!_

"I... I-I.."  _Focus, Anna, focus!_  "Just had some crazy dreams about g-geometry! Y-Yeah, what we're doing in geometry..."

Another mental facepalm.  _Smooth, Anna. Veeerrryyy smooth._

Elsa arched her brow, waiting for the other girl to continue.

"Well, ya see, I had this dream that a bunch of qua... quadril..." She frantically tried to remember what those accursed shapes were called, but at least it was sparing her from blurting out unwanted sentences.

"Quadrilaterals?" Elsa offered helpfully, looking like she was trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, that. So anyway, these quadrilaterals were chasing me in a maze and they were telling me that I was going to fail my test if I didn't know every single fact of Euclidean geometry." She realized immediately that that didn't sound quite bizarre enough, so she hurriedly added something else. "And then when I told them that was pretty much impossible, they trapped me in a box and it transported me to that one level in  _Super Mario Galaxy_  where you have to dodge all the electrical fence thingies while you're in a bubble or you die."

_Hey, you with the confused emotions! New goal, say something_  without  _babbling!_

Luckily, Elsa burst out laughing, her eyes appearing to sparkle in amusement.

_Goodness gracious, I love her laugh... I mean, it's cute, I mean, it's a nice laugh, I mean... ugh!_

"Well, don't try to fall asleep during classes, okay?" the older girl chuckled before turning back to her own brunch.

"... You like her don't you?"

"W-What?" Anna glanced up to realize that Kristoff had returned, placing a fresh spoon on her tray. The bemused smirk on his face made it clear that yes, he had seen the way Anna looked at Elsa, and yes, he guessed that she was nervous.

"N-No I don't!" Anna twiddled her thumbs, her eyes glancing around as she tried to think of some explanation, relieved that Elsa hadn't noticed. "I just think she's really cool, that's all. I mean, she's decently friendly to me, she's great at geometry, she's pretty..."

_Don't you mean gorgeous?_

_Shut up brain, trying to focus here._

"By the look on your face, I think you mean 'gorgeous', right?"

_See, Kristoff agrees!_

_Look brain, I_ really _don't need this right now._ If her conscience had a physical form like Jimminy Cricket, she'd smack it.

Anna attempted to put on her best "I-am-annoyed-with-you" face, lowering her voice and occasionally glancing over to make sure Elsa wouldn't hear. "Look, if anything, it's..." She paused.  _What's that term again where a straight girl is a little attracted to another girl?_  "It's a girl crush!  _Juuussstt_  a girl crush, nothing more than that!" She folded her arms and attempted to look triumphant.  _So there, voice-in-my-head._

Kristoff looked at her skeptically. "Have you been having dreams about her?"

"N-No," Anna said, averting her eyes.  _Crap, you just gave yourself away by_ looking _away!_

"The look on your face seems to disagree with your words," Kristoff pointed out with a knowing expression. "Seems like this is a little more than just a 'girl crush'."

"But, I'm..." Anna sighed, lowering her head onto the table and covering her face up with her arms. "I need help," she mumbled, her voice muffled by her arms and the table.

Kristoff laughed lightly. "You don't need help." He reached over and placed a hand on her's, trying to offer a little comfort. "You're just struggling with your emotions right now. A lot of girls go through it."

Anna rolled her eyes, glancing up at him but not moving her head or arms. "What, are you some kind of love expert?"

"No, but I have members of my family who are." Kristoff said with a sheepish grin.

"You're impossible, Bjorgman."

"Oh, going by last names now, are we, Summers?" Kristoff turned to his own fruit cup, munching on a carrot as he removed his hand from Anna's. "Well, point is, I'm not exactly the best at relationship advice."

The redhead sighed, hurriedly finishing her pudding and trying as hard as she could to avoid looking over at Elsa. "I-I have to go."

Kristoff looked at his friend as she picked up her tray and went over to throw her leftovers in the garbage. "Hey, feisty-pants, don't you have free time until 1:30?"

"Y-Yeah, see you later, Kristoff..."

"Where you going?"

"The Gardens."

And she hurried out of the mess hall building leaving a perplexed Kristoff—and, unbeknownst to her, a certain puzzled blue-eyed young woman—behind.

**-0-0-0-**

Arendelle University was a decent-sized campus as far as colleges went. It had various buildings for each of the departments, a small cafe, and the large mess hall that reminded more than a few of its students of an army base. But one notable feature of the campus was that on the far left side of the campus, close to the main English department building, a well-trimmed garden was kept. With its peaceful, more secluded atmosphere, the Gardens were a pretty beautiful place to relax.

Or, like Anna in that moment, for people who wanted to be alone.

Anna stepped through the flower-covered archway and took a glance around at the scenery around her. There was an array of trees and hedges which appeared to split the garden into sections, giving an occasional maze-like appearance. The assorted patches of carefully arranged flowers seemed to have a pattern to them, more based on shape and color-coordination than anything else. In the center, there was a small path of spiraling brick that led to a center which no one had any idea what its purpose was. Some said it was supposed to be for a fountain that never got built. Some other students said it was supposed to be a brick imitation of those circular mazes that you have to solve in one minute.

Either way, the fact that it wasn't much of hangout spot was fine enough for Anna. She sat down by patches of dandelions, leaning against a thick tree trunk and staring up at the sky. Even the comforting silence of the garden couldn't distract her from the thoughts swirling around and around in her head. The dreams, the unease at having them, the shivers she unwillingly got when she even thought about the light blonde-haired, blue-eyed senior...

Anna began to sing quietly to herself, her voice echoing in the empty gardens, only the trees, hedges, and flowers there to hear her song.

_Down by the Sally Gardens,_

_My love and I did meet._

_She passed the Sally Gardens,_

_With little snow white feet..._

As Anna sang, she closed her eyes, focusing on the words, the melody, and the images of the platinum-blonde young woman who had completely and unwillingly captivated her heart. Everything about the song reminded her of Elsa as she let her voice project itself throughout the gardens. A soft breeze began to blow, gentle brushing against her face. A touch that reminded her all too much of Elsa in the sensual dreams.

_She bid me take love easy,_

_As the leaves grow on the tree,_

_But I, being young and foolish,_

_With her did not agree._

She hated her brain and voice right then. Hated the passion and sadness that her voice carried as her volume rose and her mind began to drift once more to the dreams that came to her as she slept. She could feel her throat tightening, the conflicting emotions swirling around in her head and heart. Every word was beginning to be more and more of a struggle to sing, and she hated herself for it.

_In a field by the river,_

_My love and I did stand._

_And on my leaning shoulder,_

_She laid her snow white hand._

Anna clenched her fists, leaning over by a patch of flowers and turning her gaze upward at the cloudy skies overhead. She picked a small dandelion growing from the ground, the gentle breeze as well as her singing causing a few of the seeds to fly off into the air as she stood.

_She bid me take life easy,_

_As the grass grows on the weirs._

_But I was young and foolish,_

_And now I'm full of tears._

As Anna felt a few tears fall down her face as she sang the last line, she was unaware of a quiet voice echoing her words and a pair of ice blue eyes gazing sadly at her from the nearby archway. By the time the redhead looked over upon turning to leave, they were gone.


End file.
